Shades of Grey

So, how is your summer so far? If, like me, you live in northern Europe, you may feel a little cheated, apt to complain or demand your money back. Me too. After a long, bitter winter, following on from a wet, almost non-existent summer last year, this year's spring and summer have been a bit of a bad joke.

 

But, complaining achieves nothing. There are forces out there we just don't (yet?) seem to have the technology to deal with. No point in bashing your head against a brick wall. The weather, it seems, just ain't gonna change. So, try another tack... How can I enjoy it anyway? Well, here in Wales, close to the beautiful west coast, and surrounded by glorious green mountains, I am learning a new technique. One defining feature of my personality is that I love the open air. Another is that I am incurably a 'colours' person. Sadly, I love warmth too, but let's just put that one on one side for the time being...

 

Open air - well, it's still out there! It's just a tad chilly and I feel the cold quite badly. Solution: instead of wearing winter clothes and feeling cold (as I do for most of the winter), I can wear my winter clothes and feel warm. After all, it's summer! Moving here has been an experience, although the bad summer doesn't seem to be limited to Wales.

 

Last week, in our attempt to explore the local community and what it has to offer, we had a night out at a recently completed chapel conversion. The new community hall offered us a first-rate night out, with a chamber quintet all the way from England and some wonderful local musicians, together with tea and biscuits in the interval and some of the friendliest local people you could wish to meet. Coming down from the tiny gallery still incorporated into this wonderful converted chapel building, I noticed that the locals are well equipped this year to survive our novel summer weather. Sun-dresses? Strappy tops? Flimsy summer sandals to celebrate this special night out? Not a bit of it! One elderly lady struck me as particularly sensible and well-adapted - a smart outfit as befitted the occasion, but topped with a woolly hat! I'm still on a learning curve myself, but in our entrance hall at home hang a selection of summer and winter attire, a sunhat (for optimistic days) and a brown woolly hat which I don for brisk, blustery walks along the seafront. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

 

Colour? Well, the mountains are still a glorious green, the sheep are still gleaming white, especially the newly shorn, shivering ones, but the sky is often grey and the hills are sometimes shrouded with grey mist, upsetting my natural colour sense which is more adapted for the Mediterranean. As for the sea, I am learning to appreciate a whole new colour range -  misty grey, light grey, deep-dark-depressing grey, grey-black, grey-blue, grey-green, blue-grey and just plain, unadulterated grey. In the end it drove me to poetry. Well, what else can you do, sitting in the car in the drizzle, with a thermos of hot coffee on a summer's afternoon...?

                                           So Many Shades of Grey 

                                                Grey blue sea

                                                Calling me
                                                Blue grey sky
                                                Flying high
                                               Grey brown stones
                                               No-one owns
                                               Yellowish grey
                                               Sand-filled spray
                                               Greyish blue
                                               Distant view
                                               Greyish green
                                               Hills between
                                               In the rain
                                               Grey again
                                               Shades of grey
                                               Glorious day!

 

 

Not the best of poetry, but it made me feel better. You should try it sometime.